[3.5] Sovyn's Lazy Pally - Tanky Templar with Max Block

This Guide is Current for Path of Exile 3.5 Betrayal

An older version of this build was recognized in the official Build of the Week series, S04E07.

Hail and well met! :-)

Summary

The basic idea of this build is to have a very easy to play melee character with an excellent chance of blocking both attacks and spells, excellent incoming damage reduction, good life and resistances, all the while with an eye toward clearing monster packs efficiently.

In keeping with the "easy to play" theme, all of the defensive stratagems employed in the build must be passive, or at most, activated only occasionally.

No debuffs to repetitively cast, no warcries to worry about. Just wade right in there and smack 'em in the face. :) Stopping to check the loot, or to smell the roses as it were, is no problem for this build. Easy.

Although they may be helpful, the build does not require any specific unique items, making it doable for even those just starting out in Wraeclast.

For maximum flexibility, you can use virtually any melee attack skill gems and one handed axe/sword/mace/claw/dagger of choice.

Defensive Passive Skill Trees

The Defensive Skilltree is the core of the lazy pally build. Along with strong blocking ability, on the completed build we also have Mind Over Matter, Elemental Overload, Consecrated Ground, and significant life and mana leech. You'll add select damage nodes as able. See damage node recommendations in the Optional Skill Tree Choices section, below.

Life and Energy Shield
146% increased maximum Life
+1361.5 to maximum Life
10% increased maximum Energy Shield
23% increased maximum Energy Shield from Intelligence
2% of Attack Damage Leeched as Life
40% increased Life Leeched per second
+3% of maximum Life per second to maximum Life Leech rate
Life Leeched per Second is doubled.
Maximum Life Leech Rate is doubled.
Enemies Cannot Leech Life From you

Mana
30% of Damage is taken from Mana before Life
50% increased maximum Mana
+720.5 to maximum Mana
+8 Mana gained when you Block
15% reduced Mana Cost of Skills
40% increased Mana Regeneration Rate
1.6% of Attack Damage Leeched as Mana
+5% of maximum Mana per second to maximum Mana Leech rate
30% increased Mana Leeched per second
6% of maximum Mana and Energy Shield Regenerated per second while on Consecrated Ground

Resistances
+30% to all Elemental Resistances (combined total)
Immune to Elemental Ailments while on Consecrated Ground

If you don't have expensive equipment with top of the line resistances, Diamond Skin may help.

If your equipment does not include a large chunk of the intelligence stat, and your gear requires it, you may consider spending one skill point on Ancestral Knowledge.

Optional addition of area size and damage for active skill gem choices tagged with "AOE".

Ascendancy Class

New in the Path of Exile Ascendancy expansion, upon completing the optional Labyrinth area, we can choose an Ascendancy class, which is a way to further progress our character. You get two Ascendancy class points each for completing the Normal Labyrinth, Cruel Labyrinth, Merciless Labyrinth, and Endgame Labyrinth, for a total of eight points to spend on the Ascendancy Class Tree. The Lazy Pally is an Inquisitor. The Inquisitor provides a massive upgrade to the efficiency with which we slay monsters. We take the path to the Pious Path notable node on the Inquisitor Ascendancy skill tree which provides an outsized boost to our damage and survival with Consecrated Ground. Other than Pious Path, I would suggest Augury of Penitence for a defensive boost against elemental damage -- you take 8% less elemental damage. Lastly we take Instruments of Virtue for a damage boost.

(Updated Infographic coming soon)

Gear

Shield - This is your most important tool.

For Most Folks - Generally speaking, if you like to find your own items early on in the game, you will probably find a 'Kite Shield' with resistances and life on it at some point. This is fine for a while. For example:

Possibly the best choice if you have access to one in the early game (level 11 requirement) is a Lycosidae unique shield with its solid block chance, some armour and life, plus offensive benefits.

Another possibility if you have access to one in the early game is a Crest of Perandus unique shield with its high 31% chance to block. We do miss out on armour going with a Crest of Perandus but it is a decent option until you reach endgame.

As this build relies on the shield as its main source of armour (due to the Increased Defenses from Equipped Shield nodes on the passive skill tree), it is a good idea to look for a shield with plenty of armour on it. Therefore, you may want to consider a 'Tower Shield' with high armour, block, life and resists. For example:

For Solo Self-Found players, if you haven't had much luck with your drops, an adequate shield can be easily crafted. I would suggest taking either a plain white Shagreen Tower Shield or Pinnacle Tower Shield as a base and using your Transmutation then Orb of Alteration currency on it until you get life 80+ or additional block chance 4+. If it just has the one mod, use an Orb of Augmentation to add a second mod. Use a Regal Orb to add a random third mod and convert the item into a 'rare' item. Finally, once you have your master Haku up to level 6, craft either the (2 to 3)% additional Shield Block chance or +(55 to 64) to Maximum Life mod on there for a fee of 3-4 chaos, respectively (raise currency with the Full Rare Sets vendor recipe).

For Rich Folks - Aegis Aurora is an excellent choice if you can scrape together substantial armour and energy shield from your other gear. Aegis will regain your energy shield each time you block.

The Surrender is another good choice. Instead of regaining energy shield when you block, this one regains life. The gear requirements are lower than with the Aegis.

One of the above, or even a Lioneye's Remorse with useful Vaal Orb corruption, e.g., Spell Block. For example:

If you don't care for unique items, look for a rare 'yellow item' Tower Shield with 30% chance to block, 1500+ armour, a high life roll and some helpful resistances. This rare would fit well with the build as presented.

Situationally, Rathpith Globe (gear with the intelligence stat required to equip) or perhaps Saffell's Frame may be useful as a source of spell block in certain endgame content such as map Dominus and certain versions of Piety, just for example, but neither of these spell block shields are very expensive -- on a strict budget, these bosses can be safely skipped, or perhaps you can utilize a different source of spell block as detailed below.

Weapon -

For Most Folks - I suggest a hard hitting physical weapon with an attack speed suffix. As with all melee builds, you will need to constantly upgrade your weapon while leveling in order to keep your kill speed up. Look for rare one handed weapons with high physical damage percentage (XXX% increased Physical Damage) and flat physical (Adds XX-XX Physical Damage) and attack speed (XX% increased Attack Speed) bonuses. Preferably all three. Some flat elemental damage on your weapon is alright if you can't find a perfect weapon but won't make much difference. Alternatively, a fun variation on the basic build uses Facebreaker gauntlets for some hand-to-hand action instead of a weapon. Just starting out, The Screaming Eagle works. An upgrade from that would be Brightbeak. After that, Mightflay may be an option depending upon your attack skill choice below. Then, For end game, you should aim for a 'rare' (yellow item) weapon with 250 or more physical DPS and some critical strike chance to ensure that your elemental overload buffs stays up, a very doable goal with Master Crafting. A type of weapon called a 'claw' fitting this description offers the additional benefit of regaining life and possibly mana as well while you attack. A weapon type called a 'thrusting sword' has the benefit of having additional base weapon range which could be useful depending on your attack skill choice (more about attack skills below). As an example, for most folks, a good set of weapons as you level up will look something like this:

For Rich Folks - For characters over approximately level 60, you will want a weapon with a decent critical strike chance along with good damage. Depending on your attack skill choice, I recommend one of the relatively affordable endgame unique weapons. These include Scaeva, Bino's Kitchen Knife, Doryani's Catalyst, or Varunastra.

If you already have one (if not just get one of the above), you may want to go with a high damage rare item with some critical strike chance and 350 or more physical DPS as this may be usable. Or a high physical damage rare without any additional critical strike chance, although not ideal, will work acceptably.
Varunastra, while it does not have any critical strike chance, does a lot of damage due to how you can use damage nodes on the tree that apply multiple times.

Amulet -

For Most Folks - The Anvil is a unique amulet that is nearly required to max block earlier on -- assuming you can live with its drawbacks. Another top choice is Stone of Lazhwar, which is quite nice with this build, especially for maps. It will add a healthy chance to block spells with this build, which does make a noticeable difference in areas filled with spell casters.

If you don't have those uniques, any amulet with a high life affix is a good choice. Other mods to look for include physical damage, elemental resists, chaos resist, leech, armour, mana regen, quantity/rarity. You could even switch them out as needed as the Stone of Lazhwar is not very good when in areas populated with melee monsters.

For Rich Folks - One of the above unique amulets with a good Vaal Orb corruption. Block is best; a modest 2% block corruption, the lowest roll, which is actually somewhat affordable, can be helpful to max out your block depending on the shield and passive skill tree jewels you choose. My amulet:

Spell block is also a fine choice for the corrupted mod. This is in the rich folks section because corrupting can take many attempts for the desired result -- it simply depends on luck as to how much it costs in the end.

Helmet -

For Most Folks - Rare with high armour, life, any resists (chaos/elemental) or base stats like intelligence you may need, optionally item rarity. For example:

Early on, good low-cost unique choices include Ezomyte Peak, Goldrim, then, in your 30s and 40s, Deidbell. Another affordable option for level 65, light on defenses, is Rime Gaze, which offers effectively a 5-link for your attack skill with the integrated level 15 Concentrated Effect support.

For Rich Folks - Most will opt for a rare helmet with high life roll (90+), high armour and possibly energy shield as well for the Aegis Aurora shield choice, along with several 25+ resists -- simply a version of the budget recommendation above, but taken to the max. For example, here is a decent helmet I found myself and used for a long time:

Another option that I highly recommend and is my personal choice as an affordable way to maximize this build is The Bringer of Rain.

This is used instead of a chest and helmet. Although you cannot use a chest armour with Bringer of Rain equipped, it offers effectively a 7-link for your attack skill, albeit with reduced gem levels. Bringer of Rain won't quite match the Damage Per Second (DPS) output of a 6-link chest with quality gems and it's harder to max out your resistances but it is lower cost. The last option that I'd like to mention is Abyssus. Abyssus is a choice if you want more DPS at the cost of some of your defenses. If you choose Abyssus, Lightning Coil and Purity of Lightning become your best choices for the chest slot and one of your auras, respectively, as detailed in other sections of this guide. I wouldn't recommend using Blood Rage with Abyssus equipped.

Chest -

For Most Folks - The best armour-based chest you can find with armour bonus, life, resists (chaos/elemental), and as many linked sockets as you can get. Bramblejack is nice when just starting out. Tabula Rasa is an option if you can manage to max out your resists elsewhere. Example of a good goal for most folks:

For Rich Folks - If for some reason you decide not to use The Bringer of Rain instead of a chest, Belly of the Beast is a good option as it offers quite a bit of life -- it tends to be expensive with a high number of links. For rares, I suggest an 5-link or 6-link Astral Plate or Glorious Plate or Saintly Chainmail (for Aegis) with the mods listed in the "for most folks" section. The extra resists that Astral Plate provides will help you to free up other pieces of equipment for other things. You can alternatively go for an evasion-based chest (e.g. Carcass Jack to improve your attack skill) instead, but you would lose some physical damage reduction. Another interesting choice is Lightning Coil -- excellent synergy with Abyssus above -- you should run a high level Purity of Lightning aura if you go this way.

Gloves -

For Most Folks - A 'rare' item with armour, life, resistances, and physical damage if at all possible. For Example:

The inexpensive unique Slitherpinch may be useful for its leech if you are having trouble with mana early on.

For Rich Folks - Rare with high life, any resists (chaos/elemental) you still need, armour bonus, attack speed, physical damage, roughly in that order of priority. My gloves:

Note that Haku will craft up to 2% block on gloves when you reach level 6 with that master, so you may want to seek out otherwise ideal gloves with an open suffix for adding block.

Belt -

For Most Folks - Rare belt with armour, life, resists (chaos/elemental) if possible. Wurm's Molt, or Perandus Blazon may be useful early on to help equip your items.

For Rich Folks - Rustic Sash with over 20% damage, 200+ armour, 50+ life and resists, energy shield for Aegis users or weapon elemental damage, or Meginord's Girdle or Immortal Flesh if you are brave and well stocked with spell block. Belts I've used recently:

Boots -

For Most Folks - I do highly recommend boots with both life and 30% increased movement speed if at all possible.

For Rich Folks - As above, plus resistances (chaos/elemental) and armour bonuses. Alternatively, particularly with the Aegis Aurora, the Rainbowstride unique boots will serve you well as yet another source of spell block. My boots:

Rings -

A Word About Mana - If you are not using the Blood Magic support gem on your attack skill (more about attack skills below), a ring with the mana leech property, e.g., "0.2% of Physical Attack Damage Leeched as Mana" may be useful early on, before you attain the mana node recommended on my passive skill tree. The Wurm's Molt belt or Slitherpinch gloves mentioned above will work instead, but most often your leech would come from your ring(s). Don't forget to check the town vendors as they sometimes have a "Thirsty" ring for sale which can be useful on new leagues. These leech rings can sometimes replace any mana flasks you may still be using or at least reduce the frequency of their use. Another option is the rings that master Elreon sells sometimes. You can check with him after each daily mission. The rings that he sells provide a discount on mana cost of skills which can make quite a difference for already low-cost melee abilities. These are plain rings but they can be improved easily.

For Most Folks - Leech if needed, resists, some life if possible as well. If, after going through all of your other equipment choices above, you still do not have sufficient chaos resist (you at least want to get to around zero chaos resist), then this is a good place to get some, by choosing Amethyst Rings as your base items. Blackheart is a choice early on.

For Rich Folks - If you are trying to improve the build's critical strike capability, you will want one Romira's Banquet to generate Power Charges. Other than that you need ring(s) with some combination of solid resists (possibly including chaos), 70+ life, high roll flat physical damage, leech if needed and any needed stats to use your equipment. Attack speed is a plus as well. A high roll Le Heup of All is also a decent choice although a good rare ring can be better overall. Andvarius may be desirable in some situations. Rings that I have used recently, for example:

Passive Skill Tree Jewels

For Most Folks - Omit the two passive skill points spent on the jewel socket as there are better places to spend the points.

For Rich Folks -
Now as of Path of Exile 2.2 we have the Reckless Defence unique jewel. I would recommend getting one of these. For your information, the best roll would be 4% block and 7% additional chance to receive a critical strike. Although you could technically use more than one, I suggest self control with this and limiting yourself to just one due to the additional critical strikes that you will have to absorb. 10% is fine and worth it overall but 20% or more, not so much.

Skill Gems

Attack skills -
Lots of freedom to choose here but I do have some strong recommendations as you will see below. Your attack skill will be socketed into your chest armor (unless you own Bringer of Rain) as that's the only one that can have 5 or 6 linked sockets. You can get by with just a 4-link for quite some time and a 5-link chest is usually quite affordable.

Recommended attack skill - Just Starting Out - Smite, obtained free as a quest reward for slaying Hillock, the very first boss encountered as you begin the game. After completing the Mercy Mission quest in Act 1, you can buy the Ancestral Call Support from Nessa. Link the support with your Smite. After slaying Brutus, you will also receive the Added Fire Damage Support gem from Tarkleigh, which you can link as well.

Next, add Melee Physical Damage Support, a gem obtained free from Silk in Act 2 after slaying The Weaver. Melee Physical is an upgrade from Added Fire, so will most likely replace it for now. At that same time you can also obtain Elemental Damage with Attacks Support and Faster Attacks Support, both from Yeena (Tab #2 in her vendor inventory) -- because of the mana cost don't rush to link these to your attack skill yet but do start leveling these for later. You can also pick up Concentrated Effect to try and see if you like it later on.

As soon as possible, you will use Smite - Ancestral Call - Added Fire Damage - Melee Physical - Elemental Damage with Attacks in a five-linked chest item (use the trading site to get one). This combination will serve you well through the basic game.

Recommended attack skills - Endgame -

At this point, you are probably well into the higher acts of the basic game, or doing endgame maps. Here are some good options. I recommend a ranged skill for additional safety, but there are many viable choices as you will see.

Lightning Strike
Lightning Strike is the only melee projectile skill mentioned here; it provides a lot of safety range, where you can stand back and attack in place a whole screen away and kill at a distance with the projectiles. The tooltip DPS number shows the toe-to-toe melee hit, projectiles do about 75% of that damage if your support gems are well chosen. Between the eight primary projectiles and the hits from two Ancestral Calls, you are doing a lot more damage than the tooltip would suggest. Recommended supports are Elemental Damage with Attacks, Multistrike, Ancestral Call, Physical to Lightning, then Elemental Focus as your 6th link. Tip: Open options/input. Scroll down to 'attack in place'. Bind attack in place to a key on the numberpad (I use 7). Turn num lock on, then hold down your num 7 and turn off num lock, then release 7. You now always attack with the ranged attack.

Blade Flurry
Blade Flurry is a ranged melee skill, which keeps you safer as you can maintain a small distance from your opponent. The skill builds up power in 6 stages. At the 6th stage, there is a powerful 120% damage multiplier. Blade Flurry's tooltip damage figure is a little bit different than other skills as it represents the damage done per hit rather than damage per second (DPS). However, with a little math, we can determine the DPS. For example, in the picture above, you can see that the average damage is 11,294 and the attack time is 0.2. ((1 / 0.2) * 11294) * (1 + 1.2)) So, our theoretical peak damage output in this example is 124,234 DPS.
Blade Flurry can be purchased from Siosa after completing the quest, A Fixture of Fate, in act 3.
Support gem options include Melee Physical Damage, Elemental Damage with Attacks Support, Added Fire Damage, Physical to Lightning (reflect may be an issue), Increased Area of Effect, Concentrated Effect, Faster Attacks (shown on 'attack time' portion of tooltip only), Damage on Full Life Support (with Aegis Aurora), Increased Critical Strikes, Increased Critical Damage.

Earthquake
Earthquake -- This gem can be purchased from Clarissa after completing the quest, Sever the Right Hand in act 3 normal. Earthquake is a small area of effect physical damage skill that has a delayed larger area of effect aftershock. Unlike Static Strike, this aftershock effect can only occur once per delay period, rather than one for every hit. Earthquake has a smaller tooltip DPS figure than the other skills but with some math we can see that it is competitive. For example, in the screenshot above it shows 75K tooltip DPS with a 0.71 second delay between the first hit and the aftershock. The aftershock has a 1.72 damage multiplier at the example gem level. Our attack time is 0.25. (((75K * 0.25) * 1.72) * (2 - 0.71)) gives us an extra 41,602 DPS, for a total of just under 116K DPS total from Earthquake. The Less Duration support causes the aftershocks to occur more frequently, which is necessary in order to get the most out of this skill. Melee Physical Damage support is also important. To completely maximize the potential of Earthquake, you would use the Concentrated Effect support for maximum boss kill speed, then for clearing ordinary monsters, you would manually swap Concentrated Effect for an Increased Area of Effect gem. As this is an easy-to-play build, I recommend a compromise between these two, which would be the Physical to Lightning support gem. In this case, Elemental Damage with Attacks Support is better than Added Fire Damage, so the final "compromise" combination in a Bringer of Rain would be: Physical to Lightning - Elemental Damage with Attacks Support - Less Duration. In a 6-link chest or Tabula scenario, you would use that same combination, along with Melee Physical Damage and one of Added Fire Damage or Concentrated Effect or Increased Area.

Ice Crash
Ice Crash, obtained free from Maramoa as a reward for slaying General Gravicius in mid-Act 3. Ice Crash converts some of your physical damage to cold and has a very generous circular area of effect size that encompasses most monster packs. You won't have to target a specific monster, just hit the ground in the vicinity of the monsters, which is very efficient. Please note that this skill is limited to use with swords, axes, maces or the Facebreaker gauntlets so you will need one of these types of weapons. However, in order to get the damage up this high for bosses, some people would choose the Concentrated Effect support which does reduce the area size. Because both gems are blue, the Concentrated Effect support could be exchanged for the Increased Area of Effect gem for much improved map clearing efficiency. More advanced choices for supports include Physical to Lightning and Elemental Focus. Despite sporting the highest tooltip DPS in the group, the boss killing speed is slightly lesser than the other skills mentioned because there is no secondary effect. Ice Crash is still close however. Also, with Ice Crash, the damage is weaker toward the edges of the area of effect so you want to keep things close to the center if possible. My recommended Ice Crash support combination for Bringer of Rain is: Increased Area of Effect - Physical to Lightning - Elemental Damage with Attacks Support. For 6-link chest or Tabula, simply add Melee Physical Damage and Faster Attacks.

Static Strike
Static Strike -- To use this effectively in the endgame, you would need Multistrike, which is a support gem obtained free from Dialla as a reward in Act 4 while you are doing The Eternal Nightmare quest. Static Strike converts some of your physical damage to lightning. The most notable feature is that each hit has a delayed area of effect lightning burst in a slightly variable radius around you. The burst does only 60% of the damage of the primary strike but it is in addition to the tooltip damage. So for a single target, referring to the example above of 99K tooltip DPS we would actually have effective 158K DPS total with the explosions which are not shown on the tooltip. For single-target fights that last longer than a second, Static Strike pulls ahead to the front of the pack. For Bringer of Rain, support this skill with Multistrike - Elemental Damage with Attacks Support - Added Fire Damage. 6-link or Tabula, simply add Melee Physical Damage and Faster Attacks.

Molten Strike
Molten Strike converts some of your physical damage to fire. This skill is greatly improved by the new Ancestral Call Support. In addition to the initial hit represented by the tooltip, there are raining fire projectiles which each have a small area of effect that may or may not hit anything. Certainly not monsters behind you, leading to possibly less efficiency. The tooltip DPS of Molten Strike is higher but the boss killing speed is slower overall than Static Strike and about the same as Earthquake. Although the initial hit will, the projectiles do not benefit from any specifically 'melee' modifiers from supports, strength, or the skill tree. The math to figure out the total DPS of Molten Strike is unknown but I would venture a guess that it would depend on how many projectile(s) hit the desired target, over which you would not have complete control. For Bringer of Rain, support this skill with Ancestral Call - Multistrike - Elemental Damage with Attacks Support. 6-link or Tabula, simply add Melee Physical Damage firstly, and then either Physical to Lightning or Faster Attacks.

Consecrated Path

New in 3.4, this skill is similar to Earthquake, but has a movement component. If packs of monsters are close together, you'll only need to hold down this skill to clear them all, as it will teleport you between the groups automatically. Support links: Melee Physical Damage, Physical to Lightning, Elemental Damage with Attacks, Elemental Focus. If a sixth link is available, Concentrated Effect or Increased Area of Effect, Damage on Full Life, Ruthless would all offer their own benefits to the mix.

Cyclone, purchased from Tab#2 in Clarissa's inventory, available after slaying General Gravicius. Start leveling Cyclone up then but don't use it yet as you don't yet have enough life regeneration. Around level 70 you will start to have enough life regeneration and life total to support running this very high-cost skill with the Blood Magic support gem. In the endgame, you will be able to sustain Cyclone with mana leech from your equipment or jewels and then utilize an additional damage support gem instead of Blood Magic. Cyclone is one of the best melee skills because its actual damage in practice is hard to beat -- many monsters are not very resistant to physical damage and Cyclone is all about physical damage. Being constantly on the move also helps you to avoid taking damage in many situations. Because Cyclone uses the base weapon range, long ranged weapons such as the thrusting swords will give it a bit more reach (within a budget, Doryani's Catalyst can't be beat though). As this is a movement skill it does take more practice to get the hang of than the previous skills. For example when Cycloning on mana you need to be careful to always stay on top of a monster or you will quickly run out of mana. For Cyclone you typically link it with Melee Physical Damage, Added Fire Damage and Faster Attacks then add one of two of Concentrated Effect, Elemental Damage with Attacks Support, Fortify, Life Gain on Hit, Increased Area of Effect or Blood Magic.

Reave, recently improved to max out its AoE size at only three swings instead of eight and usable with movement skills without losing its AoE size for efficient clearing. Reave is obtained as a rare drop in-game or you can trade for it, or get it from one of your other characters (a quest reward for entering The Cavern of Wrath on Shadow, Duelist or Ranger). For Reave, you would also need the Multistrike support gem. Melee Physical Damage, Added Fire Damage, Faster Attacks and optionally Concentrated Effect, Increased Area of Effect, Fortify, Elemental Damage with Attacks Support or Life Gain on Hit. Reave works with Swords/Daggers/Claws only so you would need one of these types of weapons to give it a try. Also, you would not go for the mace nodes I take in the level 85+ build. By that level you will be able to choose something that works with Reave if you really want to stay with this skill.

Above I have recommended just a handful of skills, whereas Path of Exile offers many more choices. While nearly all of the many skills offered will work to varying degrees of success, the above are the safe, recommended choices. I have done the legwork for you and extensively tested all of the skills with my build and have concluded that these are the best choices right now in the current version of the game. (See the question What tests have been done to find the best melee skill? in the FAQ, below for more information.) These recommended attack skills all have built-in AoE damage which is important for clearing packs efficiently. Don't forget that you can level up several extra attack skills by placing them in sockets on the alternate set of items in your weapon switch. You can then test them out later and decide for yourself which one appeals to you most.

Other support gems you may want to experiment with that have not been mentioned thus far: If you are having mana problems you may use the Blood Magic support gem, purchased from Clarissa, this time after helping Siosa in the Library. Honorable mentions include Life Gain on Hit, Life Leech, Damage on Full Life Support (useful for Aegis Aurora users), Blind.

For rich folks, I do recommend as much quality as possible on the attack skill gem and its associated support gems. For everyone else, you can use the vendor recipe method to get quality on your gems but you do have to level them twice so they will be complete by level 92 or so, making this a long-term goal.

Auras and Buffs -

Most folks will want to run the following auras and buffs on the mana globe:

Hatred for damage. Hatred goes really well with a physical damage based build as it adds a percentage of the physical damage as additional cold damage. The more physical damage you do therefore, the larger hatred's contribution.

Herald of Purity for damage and some buddies for distraction. Adds physical damage to your attacks. Also sunmmons a Sentinel when you kill an enemy. These Sentinels will run forward to engage other enemies. Note: Use this at low level only, when you take Mind Over Matter on the passive tree, this is no longer used.

Herald of Ash - Herald of Ash adds 15% of our physical damage as extra fire damage, plus a small amount of area damage periodically. The quality bonus of Increased Fire Damage may be useful especially for those using the Added Fire Damage support gem on the attack skill.

Arctic Armour - If you take more damage than expected from fire or physical damage sources and you would like to exchange some offense for defense, you can choose Arctic Armour. Arctic Armour will chill monsters momentarily when they hit you and also cause you to take substantially less damage from physical and fire sources.

Determination - Useful if your physical damage mitigation is a little bit low. Note that this aura increases the armour you already have so it won't make up for a lack of armour from gear. Possibly better earlier on in the game when most incoming hits are small, due to the way armour works in PoE. I used this aura for a while during the low levels.

Clarity - can be useful to run low level Clarity aura in some situations, e.g., if you can almost keep up with mana cost for a skill, clarity may provide a nudge in the right direction. I used this while leveling up. Can be run with Blood Magic support gem in a pinch.

Purity of Elements - Can be an excellent crutch early on until you have adequate elemental resistances on gear. Not for endgame.

Purity of Lightning - Level this up as soon as you find it. Useful to activate before encounters such as Dominius, and, later, the Torture Chamber end game map boss. This is situational and not used all of the time unless you use Lightning Coil in which case this is used permanently instead of Herald of Ash.

Purity of Fire - Level this up when you find it. Useful for certain encounters that have a strong fire component, such as the boss in the Crematorium end game map. This is also situational and not used all of the time.

Herald of Ice - Adds a small amount of cold damage to your attacks. The quality bonus of Increased Cold Damage may be useful for Ice Crash + Hatred.

If you are using the Blood Magic support gem with your attack and movement skills, you can add Arctic Armour or Herald of Ice to the default Hatred+Herald of Ash. Before deciding, also read about Herald of Thunder in the counter-attacks section, below.

(Optional) Triggers - Note: These are optional but very helpful for endgame.

Cast when Damage Taken (CWDT) - You can obtain a Cast when Damage Taken gem from Petarus and Vanja after completion of 'The Eternal Nightmare' quest in Act 4. Do not level this trigger gem, leave it at level 1.

Link it with a level 3 Golem gem. Your choice -- Summon Flame Golem: The Flame Golem will be your companion occasionally and add to your damage as well as providing some of his own in the form of fire spells. Summon Ice Golem: A slight upgrade from the Flame Golem for very high level characters with critical strike capability. Summon Chaos Golem: An option if you want a tiny bit more defense.

Next we link Tempest Shield (level only to 7). Tempest Shield provides 3% block and some minor additional damage.

If you want to use a 4-link for this, I suggest either Blood Rage (level 7) for non-Aegis Aurora users for the three Frenzy charges which will provide you some additional attack speed. If you do use Aegis, substitute Molten Shell (level 10).

If your gems are too high level you can reduce the level with the vendor recipes, either by one level at a time (gem + scour) or down to level 1 (gem + regret).

Counter-Attacks - As we are block specialists, we can utilize all three of the available counter-attacks. The counter-attacks and their associated gems can be leveled up all the way.

The Counter-Attacks provide a way to passively curse our enemies for additional defense or offense and also do some free damage. I have chosen Reckoning for this purpose as it applies the curse to more enemies than the other Counter-Attack skills could.

Link with Curse on Hit and your choice of one curse: Enfeeble - The only choice for hardcore, this is very powerful against endgame bosses due to its ability to reduce their damage and critical strikes, or you can use Vulnerability (for physical attack skills) or Elemental Weakness (for elemental attack skills) here instead of Enfeeble in easy going areas for additional offensive capability. For high level characters with top tier equipment, Punishment is probably the best DPS curse if you choose a close-range melee skill. Other good curse choices if you have mana troubles are Warlord's Mark or Poacher's Mark, or use Assassin's Mark to further the critical strike capability of the build.

If you want to use a 4-link item for this, optional choices include the counter-attack when you are hit, Vengeance to apply your curse slightly more frequently, or Blind for additional defense.

The hardest hitting single target counter-attack, Riposte is then placed in any available green socket.

If however you opt to not use The Bringer of Rain for some reason, the counter-attacks can also provide a way to passively gain Endurance Charges for additional defense against physical attacks. I recommend the hardest-hitting counter-attack on block, Riposte, and the counter-attack when you are hit, Vengeance, linked with Endurance Charge on Melee Stun and Stun.

Finally, if you choose The Surrender unique shield, you can take advantage of the level 30 counter-attack by putting life leech, life gain on hit, and blind supports on there for additional tankiness.

(Optional) Movement -
It's always nice to move around swiftly through maps, especially in a party where people move very quickly and it may be difficult to keep up.

Most people will probably find Shield Charge to be the ideal movement skill for the lazy pally, as it allows for very fast linear movement and, as it is an area of effect skill, it can grant you the powerful Fortify buff very efficiently as you move through packs of monsters.

If you are using an axe, mace or sword you can instead (or also) use Leap Slam for those times when you need to jump over a fence or gap for more efficient travel. Leap Slam can perhaps be used on your weapon swap (x key) for these times.

If you are using an dagger, claw, or sword, you have the option of choosing Whirling Blades, which arguably is the smoothest movement skill. This is a linear movement similar to shield charge, but with a slightly faster animation. You may find this to be the ideal choice for endgame boss encounters as speed is of the essence there.

Support options:

Add Blood Magic support if reserving 100% of mana with three auras/buffs. If not reserving 100% of mana, linking Blood Magic here is optional but if you are using mana on your primary attack skill this will help to ensure that you have some mana available if you tend to use the movement skill extensively without monsters nearby.

Linking Fortify here is optional but highly recommended as this will free up a socket on your primary attack skill so that you can use a damage support gem instead.

Mana Leech support allows you to regain a small amount of mana if you intentionally try to target monsters with your movement skill. In conjunction with the Blood Magic support here it allows regaining some mana for your primary attack skill to consume.

Faster Attacks support helps to reduce the animation time of the movement skill in order to get around an area more quickly.

Three linked socket item (example, weapon):

Shield Charge (red) - Fortify (red) - Faster Attacks (green)

Flasks

My flasks:

At first, you will just be using the best flasks that you can find from monster drops and quest rewards. Just starting out, I'd suggest two life flasks, one or two quicksilver flasks and one or two mana flasks. The more uses they have, the better. For example, early on you will notice you can use some of the life flasks three times instead of only two. Remember to upgrade the life flasks as you have access to better ones that refill more of your growing life pool.

From the very beginning, you want to save up any flasks you find that have quality on them. When you have enough quality flasks to total 40+ quality altogether, sell that group of flasks to any NPC vendor. You will receive a Glassblower's Bauble each time you do this. Save them up as you level.

Around when you start finding plain white Hallowed life flasks, it's time to execute my plan.

I recommend two instant life flasks.

So, hit a plain white Hallowed life flask with four Glassblower's, this will raise the quality to 20%. Next, use a transmutation orb, then alteration orbs until the flask has a "Seething" or "Bubbling" prefix.

Make two. Put these on flask slots numbers 1 and 2. You will be tapping these anytime you get seriously hit, which should not be too often.

If you want to finesse it, you can try for useful suffix mods as well, such as Staunching (removes bleeding, essential to have this somewhere) or Dousing (dispels burning).

The instant flasks can be upgraded later to the level 65 Divine flasks as shown above.

For your remaining flasks, I'd go with more life flasks for topping up between fights (especially helpful if your gear is not very good) but it's up to you depending on your needs. In my case I would choose Ample or Saturated life flasks of Iron Skin or even "of Resistance" if you find Necromancer's elemental curses to be a problem for you. Perhaps one of each.

Optionally, if you want some extra work, Ample Granite Flask of Iron Skin is nice if you get hit hard, to mitigate a follow up blow that may finish you off. Rumi's Concoction is also a useful unique granite flask for raising your chance to block spells.

For those that wish to work a bit harder to enable the most out of their character, the new unique DPS flasks are a good choice. These need to be used at the best moment to make the most of them as they won't be available half of the time. Watching for those best moments and activating the DPS flask takes some extra work. These flasks enable a high peak DPS output, for a few seconds. They are: Atziri's Promise (cheap), and Lion's Roar (mid-priced) and Taste of Hate (rich folks only but maybe you will find one).

If you are very high level, you can look into the benefits of resistance (ruby flasks are popular) or granite flasks with the Surgeon's prefix, which enables the use of the flask more frequently as you deliver critical strikes with your attack skill.

Finally, unless you are using the Blood Magic support on your attack skill, you may want one mana flask or hybrid flask handy for the end game when you are doing maps with the "of smothering" affix. This will be used situationally so keep it in your bag. It should not be needed normally as, if you are following my guide, you will have balanced your attack skill's mana intake to match the leech available on your gear by this time, or you are using the Blood Magic support gem. I suggest a "Saturated" mana flask for this purpose, as you want the mana regeneration from the flask to more closely match your mana draw.

Deal with the Bandits Quest

As you progress through the game, the question will arise - what is the best way to do the act 2 bandit quest? While you can't go too far wrong no matter your choice here, as the rewards are all roughly equivalent, I suggest killing all three bandits and collecting the skill points from Eramir. This way, you can conveniently reallocate those valuable points with orb of regret or during a patch tree reset. There is a lot of utility to that. Personally, I took the skill points and don't regret it.

Example Builds

Budget Setup (Less than one exalted total)

Here in this example you can view all in one place the equipment and gems suggested for endgame on a budget. This is useful so that you can see a somewhat optimized setup for an actual high level character using this build.

Here in this example you can view all in one place the equipment and gems suggested for endgame for those with some currency. This setup does slightly more damage and is slightly tankier.

Choose one:

Example Stats - Premium Setup

Offence (includes all self-buffs - Atziri's Promise flask, Lion's Roar flask, 3 Power charges, Hatred, Ice Golem.) With some math we can calculate that this is 195,711 DPS at peak maximum:

Uber Setup

Since many players enjoy this build so much that they wish to take it to Shaper or level 95+, here is an all-out unlimited budget setup. I choose Lightning Strike for the Uber version.

Gearing same as premium except the weapon will be Varunastra and we will socket a Red Nightmare near Holy Dominion.

Alternatively to Lightning Strike, obviously with lesser range, over one million Effective DPS is possible with this build with Blade Flurry on an unlimited budget with these gems: Blade Flurry - Physical to Lightning - Concentrated Effect - Melee Physical - Elemental Damage - Damage on Full Life

This will vary depending on how new your league is or if you are playing hardcore, lack of availability. With the lazy pally, even gearing with some of the best choices does not have to be expensive if you are a patient shopper. For example, my own gear shown above in the budget setup cost me:

.....Plus some minor currency for the three- and four-links, socket colors, and quality where applicable (all easy stuff).

As you can see, the total cost of my budget endgame gear set as above was approximately one (1) to two (2) exalted, depending on the league, a very reasonable sum for someone my level, making this an extremely low-cost build for endgame capability, at a time when dozens of exalted are typically spent by most other builds for the endgame suit. This amount of currency is easily raised over time by the three chaos / three regal vendor recipe and minor trading during the course of gameplay. Admittedly, with patience and time on my side, I did benefit from the kindness of others relative to providing fair deals, along with some good luck on drops, one of the perks of playing for a few years.

Q: Is the Lazy Pally viable for solo self-found play?A:

Spoiler

For approximately the first year and a half that I casually played my lazy pally, I remained strictly self-found. Self-found means that I only used items that I found myself as a drop. You can certainly choose to either use nice items acquired by the trading scene that PoE offers, or expend currency to upgrade your equipment earlier on. I had chosen the most difficult route, that is, I was self-found and saved most currency for endgame crafting. However, following my defensively oriented build, I soloed all of Merciless difficulty and most Maps even with extremely modest self-found items, proving the viability of the lazy pally. I more recently decided to acquire gear by trading in order to be better able to tackle the new, more difficult endgame content Path of Exile has to offer.

Q: Is the Lazy Pally Hardcore viable?A:

Spoiler

Yes it is! We have had many people reach well into their 80s using this build in both regular hardcore and the temporary hardcore leagues over the course of the last year. That said, no matter your choice of build, if this is your first time playing through Path of Exile, you want to start out in Standard league or the Standard ruleset temporary league to learn the ins and outs of the game before subjecting yourself to hardcore mode. There are many mechanics found in the game that are simply unfair if you are not prepared for them. When you can never die in Standard, you are ready for Hardcore.

Q: What kinds of things can kill me?A:

Spoiler

While the Lazy Pally will feel invulnerable in most situations, there are a few cases where the game has a trick or two up its sleeve. These things of course kill nearly all builds out there if they are not avoided or if precautions are not taken. For example:

- Do not open ice nova strong boxes;

- Do not open chaos clouds strong boxes unless you have chaos resist over 0 (atziri's promise helps here);

- Do not open corpse explosion strong boxes without having first cleared all corpses in the area with devouring totem. After opening box, lead all monsters far away to kill them;

- Do not allow yourself to be near a 'Volatile' Nemesis rare when it dies in negative resistances maps;

- Do not fail to back away and switch to a true single-target attack skill such as Heavy Strike (without multistrike or melee splash supports) when you see rogue exile Minara Anemina. She must be slain without damaging her minions;

- Skip rogue exile Vanth Agile unless you have high chaos resistance. Note that this rogue can even appear in normal difficulty;

- Do not attempt any new (to you) map bosses or the optional final boss in Merciless without having first practiced extensively in standard league and honed your skills to a certain degree of confidence. All bosses can be defeated with observance of their mechanics and properly gearing for the encounter. However, many bosses are best skipped in hardcore at any level or levels 90+ if you do not wish to risk your character or experience. The risk vs. reward is just not worth it;

- Do not fail to hammer your 'Staunching' flask when you have the Corrupting Blood ailment or bleed;

- Do not fail to hammer the keys ALT + F4 on your keyboard if you notice that you are lagging out in any way.

Bear in mind I see people die to these things all the time with all kinds of builds so these are just some of the things to watch for in general in Path of Exile. This is not intended to be a complete list but it will help you.

Q: Why not get Iron Reflexes or Unwavering Stance?A:

Spoiler

Stuns happen when you are low on life. Life based characters don't get stunned easily. If we get low enough life to actually get stunned without Unwavering at high level we are dead anyway. I never see a stun at least on my high level Templar so the points would be wasted.

Iron Reflexes would only give me another thousand armour on top of the ten thousand I already have so it is a waste of points as well.

Q: Why not get some Evasion?A:

Spoiler

Since 2.0, Ondar's Guile is now useless, that was a major reason for some evasion before. In addition, evasion does not make much of a difference in the average chance to get hit on a max block build -- 18% with some evasion vs. 25% with max block alone. Finally, with minimizing the amount of evasion we have and going for armour instead we have more passive effects going off like curses and stuns and endurance charges and damage from our counter-attacks and Tempest Shield duration refreshes. None of these things happen if you evade.

Q: I don't have enough dexterity, what to do?A:

Spoiler

If you are finding that all of the good weapons that drop for you before level 60 require dexterity, you can get the Expertise node near the Templar start and re-spec out of it at a later time. The Precision node may be an option if that doesn't do it. You can also, if required, use an Onyx, Jade, Citrine or Turquoise amulet. The common Perandus Blazon unique belt is very handy for a stat shortage situation as well.

Q: Can I play a Lazy Pally Duelist, Ranger, Marauder or Scion?A:

Spoiler

Yes, absolutely! Simply reference my completed passive skill tree and remove the 'mana regen and life' node and the two Strength nodes at the start of the Templar area, and connect to the existing skill tree path via your preferred class starting nodes. Everything else is the same aside from the Ascendancy class. We pass near by all of the class starting areas except the Witch and Shadow. You will make a little bit of extra work for yourself though, as I only provide the progression builds for the Templar. You will need to make your own way with the other classes, but it's not difficult. I do believe the full-strength Inquisitor Ascendancy class (only available to the Templar) is the best choice for the Lazy Pally as it provides the most damage. We can get all of our defenses from gear. Other Ascendancy classes may work, some better or worse than others but are outside of the scope of this guide.

Q: Why not use Enlighten?A:

Spoiler

For Rich Folks -

Enlighten - Please note that you will never catch me using this myself. This is for the super rich only but bears mentioning as some may own this gem already on Standard league. Linking your chosen auras/buffs together with a corrupted level 4 Enlighten support gem will reduce the mana reserved by the auras/buffs which may allow you to run certain low-mana-cost attack skills off of your mana with some combination of mana leech item(s), Clarity, Elreon rings, while utilizing two or three of the auras/buffs mentioned above. The main benefit is being able to drop the Blood Magic support gem and use a fifth damage support gem on your attack skill in conjunction with an optional aura/buff for additional damage or defense. You can get even yet a little more free mana by using Alpha's Howl mentioned above in the helmet section.

Q: Any Endgame Tips and Tricks?A:

Spoiler

Trials of Ascendancy / Lord's Labyrinth: I recommend removing the Blood Rage gem during the trap areas if you are using it. No point in having damage you take from traps set it off and reduce your life regeneration.

Act 3 end boss, Dominus: Have a flask with "Removes Bleeding." This will be helpful for Dominus' second form (the giant bug). When you notice the bleed icon, hit the flask to remove it.

Act 4 end boss, Malachai: When he raises his staff, use your movement skill to distance yourself in order to manually avoid his smash attack.

Dunes (68), Spider Forest (71): The Blacksmith. In his second form, he can spawn zombies each time he leap slams. The zombies have a powerful chaos AOE when they die. Two ways to deal with it: 1) swap gems to single target only attack skill (no multistrike either), focus on boss, ignore zombies (this is the only option in most groups). 2) Stand toe-to-toe with Blacksmith and don't let up, so that he won't leap slam.

Museum (70): Pull and kill the other two bosses one at a time. Leave Alal the Terrifying until the end. For chaos resist on a tight budget, you can roll Amethyst Rings with alterations. Bosses that are a real threat (Museum, for example), you can just pull them separately and switch rings for the chaos fight.

Residence (76) boss: Basically Dominus first form, you will have seen him in Merciless by now. Manually evade the exploding monsters when you have the orange mark over your head. DPS on Dominus when not marked.

Plataeu (77) boss: Has a serious chaos damage aura, make sure you have some chaos resist gear on (I'd say around -20 should be fine).

Crematorium (78) boss: Like that firestorm unique mob in the second area of the game, except harder. Avoid the firestorm, or if you're very well geared you can try to tank it, just make sure the map doesn't have reduced max resist or elemental weakness mods. Spell block + Purity of Fire aura.

Academy (78): The Arbiter of Knowledge spits out a tornado each time you strike him. Hit him a few times then back away to safety and let the tornados dissipate, repeat until finished. Don't let too many tornados build up on you. Hitting harder but slower helps here.

Village Ruin (79) boss: Stonebeak, Battle Fowl - high chaos damage, skip this unless you have very high chaos resistance.

Maze (81) boss: Vaal Oversoul. Don't take consecutive lightning blasts and avoid the smash by running around to his back when he raises his mace arm. You can also use a movement skill to do this.

Q: What tests have been done to find the best melee skill?A:

Spoiler

Many melee skills have been extensively tested with various support gem combinations in an The Bringer of Rain, therefore Melee Physical Damage and Faster Attacks supports are a given. The skill gems are all the same level to ensure fairness.

Boss Kill Speed Tests: I have a repeatable routine where I slay all three bosses in the merciless Harvest (Doedre, Maligaro, Shavronne). Each boss has a different resistance so it is a good test and quite accurate sussing out the best skills from the lesser ones. Each of the three is timed very closely with a stopwatch and then added together for the total time for that run. The times shown are the averaged results of several runs with each combination.

Without further ado, here is the list of results ordered from best to worst:

Clear speed tests: These tests involve clearing a Gorge map (T9) as quickly as possible. The clear is closely timed from start to finish. You will notice that the gem Increased Area of Effect is used here but not in the boss kill speed tests as it would have no benefit there.

I was curious to see how people responded to this.
I'm quite similar to yours minus the elemental damage.

Thanks for your comment. Looks good. I like how you snuck down there relatively early on and got Diamond Skin. One thing that occurred to me though, you could remove that strength node to the right of Ancestral Bond and go down through the shield nodes near the starting point instead to pick up some extra goodies.

Hi, one question, which attack skill do you plan to use?
Each build is dependent on a particular attack skill.
Its really impossible to be master of all skills.

If you can tell us which skill you want to concentrate on, e.g. Lightning strike, groundslam,
etc. we can comment more.

Hey there, thanks for your comment.

This passive tree build does not focus on reinforcing any single damage skill gem or weapon type. Instead, this build provides a strong survival platform, leaving the player the flexibility to choose his or her best one handed weapon, and to utilize his or her preferred choice of melee attack skill gem and support gems.

Thus the build is ideal for those who do not have everything already, perhaps even self found, and perhaps have little desire to enter the trading scene.